What exactly has Charlie Baker accomplished as governor?
I’ll wait for your answer. There’s no rush. We’ve got all day. While you’re thinking, can I mention a few, a very few, of his signature achievements?
The man known as Tall Deval makes dumb Super Bowl bets with the governor of whatever state the NFC champion plays in.
He announces his “disappointment” with Donald Trump at least as often as AG Maura Healey files one of her own frivolous lawsuits against the federal government.
He occasionally gets a stupid buzz cut for charity, as he did yesterday with Tom Brady. (Rather than shaving his own head, wouldn’t it be more satisfying if Tall Deval started shaving the bloated pensions of all these dodgy State Police brass who are “retiring” one step ahead of the posse?)
Whenever there’s a snowstorm, he travels to MEMA headquarters in Framingham and advises everyone to bundle up and stay warm and try not to go out on the highways, especially if you’re a non-essential, I mean non-emergency state worker.
Every Monday at the State House, he has a closed meeting with an unindicted coconspirator in a federal corruption indictment, a Senate leader who has since had to step down in the midst of an FBI investigation of his spouse, and his lieutenant governor who likes to pose for pictures with a suspended female state trooper who has admitted to perjury, drug-dealing, income-tax evasion and money laundering.
He signed the transgender bathroom bill to allow “self-identifying” male sex offenders to use the ladies’ bathroom.
He vowed to veto the obscene 40 percent pay raise for the legislature – but only after the unindicted coconspirator and the guy who had to step down because of the FBI investigation of his boyfriend had rounded up enough votes to override the veto.
I could go on, but maybe you’re ready to share with us your list of Tall Deval accomplishments? No? Well, I’ll just keep talking then. You know, they used to say that Mussolini made the trains run on time. When it comes to Tall Deval, we’d be happy if he could just get the MBTA trains to run, period.
You know, when most politicians in executive offices run for reelection, they can claim at least a few victories. Whatever you say about Trump, his administration has demolished ISIS, gotten the economy out of its eight-year Obama malaise, and had an excellent judge confirmed onto the Supreme Court.
Again, the recurring question: what exactly has Tall Deval done, other than making monthly appearances on radio shows where the disc jockeys are afraid to ask him a tough question?
Why doesn’t anyone ever inquire about, oh, I don’t know, the DOR hackerama, the scam payouts of “unused” vacation and sick time across state government, especially at the state “universities?” Why no questions about the endless low-grade scandals at the DCR, or the gross incompetence of any number of other state agencies, like for instance the DCF and/or the environmental police.
Yet he has no serious opposition. You know the old saying, you can’t beat somebody with nobody, even if that somebody hasn’t done a damn thing worth a damn.
Tall Deval is a guy who was elected in 2014 only because he lucked into running against the Hillary Clinton of Massachusetts – hapless Marsha Coakley. How many white male politicians in Massachusetts owe their careers to having the good fortune to draw Marsha as an opponent?
First it was Marty Walsh, then Scott Brown, and now Tall Deval.
Ironically, now that Marsha has departed the scene, the biggest thing Tall Deval has going for him is the president he so loves to be disappointed in – Donald Trump. As long as the economy is humming, and everybody has money in his pocket, nobody’s really going to notice that state government is an absolute catastrophe, and is only going to get worse. (Hello, graduated income tax!)
Plus, attacking Trump on practically a daily basis keeps the moonbats at bay. As long as he says the right things, Tall Deval can be their token Republican, even if he’s Republican In Name Only.
Bottom line: if Trump didn’t exist, Tall Deval would have to invent him.